Wisniewski: Toll hike report raises new doubt on GWB lane closures

Mar. 10, 2014

David Wildstein, former Port Authority director of interstate capital projects

Written by

Ken Serrano @KenSerranoAPP

Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director at the Port Authority

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The chairman of the joint legislative panel looking into the closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge says reports of a campaign to manipulate the selling of a toll hike increase to the public in 2011 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey throws fresh doubt on the lane closures.

The same crew of Chris Christie political associates involved in the George Washington Bridge lane closures was involved in the toll hike scheme, The Record and Star-Ledger newspapers reported March 2.

“It’s a further layer of allegations that cast more suspicion on excuses and explanations of who knew what when” about the closing of two of three access lanes to the bridge from Fort Lee, said Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, co-chair of the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation.

The select committee issued a subpoena to the Port Authority in February about the toll hike approved Aug. 9, 2011.

“We’re waiting for answers,” Wisniewski said.

That wait is nothing new.

Wisniewski started sending the Port Authority Freedom of Information Act requests as chairman of the Assembly Transportation and Independent Authorities Committee in the spring of 2011 as talks to increase tolls were underway.

It wasn’t until the committee received subpoena power that documents started flowing in, eventually 61,000 of them.

“It was like, here’s your haystack, find your needle,” he said.

The Port Authority in 2011 proposed a massive toll hike so that Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo could later scale it back and gain support for a softened increase, allowing the two governors to claim false credit as fiscal hawks, said separate stories in The Record and Star-Ledger.

The approved plan is increasing Hudson River tolls in stages to $12.50 for E-ZPass subscribers and $15 for cash customers by December 2015. The maximum initially proposed tolls were $14 and $17.

To political observers, it’s not news that gamesmanship was involved in the toll increase, said pollster Patrick Murray.

“It was no surprise to those of us who were following this that the (initial) toll hike was higher than what they planned to do as a way to give governors in both states political cover,” he said.

“What’s surprising is the extent to which Baroni and Wildstein manipulated the process,” he said. “These things are done on the QT. But Baroni and Wildstein were doing a lot more than what was needed. They were rubbing it in people’s faces. It was as though they were sending a message: ‘Hey, we’re Christie’s guys and we’re taking over.”

Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said it’s unclear how this will affect Christie in light of the scandals already casting a shadow over his administration. If anything, this further erodes what’s left of the popularity brought by his handling of superstorm Sandy, he said.